In a corner of the wall, about the centre of the island, they showed us a large ruin, probably of a church belonging to the times of the Crusaders, who had possession of the place from the year 1124 to 1289. Near these ruins were some very large columns of Egyptian granite, which looked as if they might have been taken from some of the ancient temples. I passed out of the gate, and made the circuit of the peninsula. The shore on the southern side is formed of masses of bare rock, much eaten by the waves, and in some places undermined. The foundations of buildings are to be traced all over the ground, and also extending out some distance into the sea. The isthmus has become very wide, and now presents nothing but hills of loose sand, driven about by every wind, and destined perhaps to cover the entire peninsula. The shore opposite, for an extent of miles, is now also nothing but a bed of sand, amid which, any traces of the ancient city that may have been left by Alexander, have entirely disappeared. It was of this old city, of sixteen miles in circumference, and whose walls were 120 feet in height, that the prophecy was uttered: “I will make thee a terror and thou shalt be no more; though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God. All they that feared thee among the people shall be astonished at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more;” and in vain amid that plain of yellow drifting sand should we seek for any memorial of it, or expect to see it rise again. Of this great mistress of the sea, the mother of many colonies, some, as for instance Carthage, of prodigious wealth; of the city that distributed crowns, “whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were the honorable of the earth,” nought now remains, and its site would probably be unknown but for this island and the village that stands here, as if in mockery of the greatness of ancient Tyre. “Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days?” After walking about a short time among the dull streets, we were glad to escape and get back to the ship. The commerce of Tyre now consists of tobacco, charcoal, and fagots;--what a contrast to former times!